Animal Studies

Question 1

Name and describe the wire monkey study

Answer 1

Harlow
- used maternally deprived monkeys
- offered a choice of cloth mother (comfort) or wire mother (food)
- on average monkeys spent 17/18 hours a day on cloth mother va 1 hour in wire
- when frightened, ran to cloth mother

Question 2

What behaviours did monkeys in the wire mother study show later in life?

Answer 2

Showed issues in adulthood; aggressive & less sociable, had issues mating and as mothers neglected, attacked + even killed their young

Question 3

Define critical period

Answer 3

Time frame in which an attachment needs to be formed to prevent negative consequence

Question 4

What was the critical period for monkeys found to be?

Answer 4

90 days

Question 5

Give positives for the wire money study

Answer 5

+ Theoretical value - profound effect in our understanding of infant caregiver interactions; comfort > food, emphasises importance of early attachment
+ Practical application - application in a range of practical contexts ; e.g. social workers can identify risk factors of abuse/neglect; orphanages no longer only feed children; breeding programmes

Question 6

Give limitations of the wire mother study

Answer 6

— Ethical issues - Psychological harm caused to monkeys through stressful conditions; may have produced unnatural behaviour so low IV
— Generalisability - Monkeys do not have complexity of emotions that humans have, so we may not be able to apply results to humans

Question 7

Name and describe the gosling study

Answer 7

Lorenz
- randomly allocated goose eggs, half hatched with mother and other half on an incubator who saw Lorenz first
- mixed goslings up and observed behaviour
- found geese followed who they saw first, called this imprinting w/ a critical period of 2 hours
- aids survival; if no moving object after critical period no attachment formed